Wednesday, October 05, 2005

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Californica has passed down a “landmark” ruling, in which it has apparently determined that,

Screaming and yelling by men at work may now be sex-based discrimination if women at work find the behavior more intimidating than men do.”*

If that’s the case, better than half the bosses I’ve worked for were raging nymphomaniacs and misogynist man haters. Woman haters. Whatever.

“This decision is a significant extension of the law of gender-based discrimination…”

There’s a blinding statement of the headsmackingly obvious.

“If the abusive behavior will be actually and reasonably perceived as disadvantageous by women, the behavior may be discrimination”

So, now you are guilty based on how your actions are PERCEIVED, not whether there was intent.

So, does this take “manslaughter” off the table as far as killing someone? Under this law, there are no more “accidents.” "I didn’t MEAN to kill him!" Doesn’t matter. Murder One; you get the chair.

“There is no theoretical reason why the standard set in this case could not be further extended to race or other forms of discrimination.”

And there it is, folks; the legal “precedent,” the swift kick down the slippery slope into the pool of politcally correct piranhas.

“Because women found the behavior subjectively more intimidating than men did, and reasonable women would do so, the conduct treats women differently. That it may not have been the director’s intent to treat women differently does not matter...”

So despite the much-promoted feminist mantra of gender equality, all that hard work to convince us as a society that “women are just like men” has been undone in one fell swoop by those ever-progressive Jurists of the Ephemeral 9th Circuit Court of Holistic Enlightenment and Wonder.

Now, let’s say I have a platoon of Marines, one of whom happens to be a woman, and I yell out, “Git yer asses up that hill, Marines!!” Do I then have to turn to the one female and ask her ever so politely to “please proceed at yer best pace to the top of this here hill, if it isn’t too much trouble, please,” on the off chance that she might find the reference to “asses” overtly sexual, and my tone inimitably hostile?

Apparently, then, instead of treating women equally, I’m supposed to give special consideration to their gentler nature and weaker emotional disposition. Sounds rather noble and 50’s-ish, eh? So the old “Anything boys can do, I can do better” needs to be amended with “as long as you don’t yell at me?”

How’s that saying go…? “Perception is 9/10 of reality?”

While this ruling may fly in the face of feminist ideology, it inadvertently conforms to basic sociological norms. The actual existential reality of it all is that yes, in fact, women DO react differently to stimuli than men. They DO have a different response to verbal hostility, especially from a male authority figure. However, in today’s hypersensitive feminist-driven PC culture, we aren’t allowed to actually SAY that anymore.